Things Sure Have Changed
by XmagicalX
Summary: Goku, Vegeta, and their wives return from a long training trip to find Chikyuu is a bit...different...


DISCLAIMER: They ain't mine, none of 'em.

Forget about DragonBall GT; this is what *really* happened. After a long intragalactic training voyage, Goku, Vegeta, and their wives return home to find Chikyuu is a bit...different...

Things Sure Have Changed

XmagicalX

  
Goku stepped off the ramp of the spaceship and took a huge breath of clear Earth air, the first he had tasted in four decades. It smelled marvelously fresh, cleaner than he remembered, and the trees looked fuller and greener. He smiled, then solicitously gave a hand to his wife as she followed him down, blinking in the bright sun.

"Tousan! Kaasan!"

Chichi's face lit up at the call, and she opened her arms to accept the embrace of her elder son. "Gohan-chan!"

He squeezed her back carefully, laughing. "You were right on time!" Then he turned to hug his father. "I'd've sensed you coming even if you hadn't called, though--you've become even stronger!"

"Hai! That was the point of this trip." Goku beamed at his son. "You have, too!"

There was a snort from the ramp behind them. "Barely. Your brat's gotten frail, Kakarotto."

"Konnichiwa, Vegeta-san!" Gohan greeted the other Saiyajin with a broad grin. "And Bulma-san. It's so wonderful to see you again!" He looked around at his family and friends, drinking them in. "You haven't changed at bit--you all look younger than me now!"

"Well, the Namek Dragonballs had **nothing **to do with that, right?" Bulma exchanged a wink with Chichi.

Gohan laughed again. "You both look beautiful, Okaasan, Bulma-san."

"You, though!" Goku reached out and ruffled his son's hair. "What's this? All gray?"

"It can still be gold if I want it to be," Gohan assured him. "I've been practicing ki exercises with Piccolo-san. Physically I'm finally starting to feel my age, but my power and control have improved a lot."

"And Videl-chan lets you train all day?" Chichi asked.

A brief cloud shadowed Gohan's face, giving him the semblance of his true age. "Videl died, two years ago. Only age...the Dragonballs couldn't have helped." He brightened again. "But Dende-sama talks to Enma-sama regularly, and she's loving heaven. We'll be together again, when the time comes."

Chichi looked slightly shocked, no doubt by the reminder that her beloved son was mortal. But Goku patted Gohan on the back comfortingly, and Vegeta nodded with an unusual, quiet sympathy, his eyes on Bulma, no doubt imagining what it would be like to lose his own mate. The Saiyajin lifespan was more than double that of humans; the youth wish made with the Namek Dragonballs had been as much a blessing to him and Goku as to its two recipients.

Gohan broke the brief silence with good cheer. "Pan and the rest are doing well, and so are your great-grandkids." He paused with an impish grin. "In fact, you have a great-great-grandson."

"Great..._great_?" Chichi swayed as if on the verge of a faint.

Gohan took her hands, chuckling. "He just turned ten. He's Pan's grandson, but he looks just like Goten as a kid, black spiky hair and everything. And he has the Saiyajin fighting spirit, that's for sure; he loves a good battle. He even had a short tail, but his mom had it removed when he was a baby."

"Can he go Super Saiyajin?" Vegeta was curious in spite of himself. The strength of Saiyajin blood in human hybrids was of special interest to him, as the last Ouji of his race.

Gohan frowned slightly. "I don't know if he has the Super Saiyajin capability...he hasn't been pushed into it. I myself haven't been the Great Saiyaman since you left, I've been able to be a professor full-time; there hasn't been any need for fighting--"

Abruptly realizing what he had just said, he hastily changed the subject. "Bulma-san, Capsule Corp is doing great. Bra's daughter took over as CEO fifteen years back and the company's thriving. Their number one invention breaks every record for sales--"

"Really? What is it?"

"A modification of the basic capsule structure," Gohan fast-talked rapidly, "allowing for the encapsulation of certain life forms—" He winced when the twin auras fired up around the other two men, as they finally registered what he had let slip.

"What do you mean--" Goku began, sounding puzzled.

"No need for fighting?" Vegeta finished, sounding furious.

Gohan rubbed the back of his neck. It would have had to come out sooner or later. "There's no crime anymore, or practically none. No war, either. People don't have any reason to fight."

"But why?" Now Bulma looked perplexed as well. "Human nature just changed overnight? Or was Vegeta really that bad an influence on the planet?"

"Actually, it **was **his fault," Gohan sighed.

Vegeta flared up to Super Saiyajin. "**_Nani_**?"

"The wish you made on Kaioushin's world, while fighting Majin Buu, Vegeta-san," Gohan explained. "You had the Namek dragon bring back the planet Earth, and then you wished back to life everyone good."

He stopped, waited until they got it. Or at least until Bulma snapped her fingers, crying, "Oh my god--of course! Porunga followed your rules--he brought back everyone good. All the people Buu killed, and you too, Vegeta, when you were Majin. But only the good people, not Dabura or Babi-di."

"Or any evil Earth people," Gohan said. "No murderers, no rapists, no sadists. No one who was evil in their heart, as Porunga saw it. That didn't stop all crime, of course. Or all war, or all hate. There were a lot of people doing bad things that they genuinely believed they had good reasons for. But when everyone had good intentions in their hearts, deep down, and without evil leaders to guide others to evil--that goodness eventually came through. And the world's a better place for it. We've cleaned up the environment, saved species on the brink of extinction. There's no more wars, no more drugs, no more murder. Children are safe wherever they go."

"But...no fighting?" Goku looked positively woebegone.

Gohan shook his head. "Martial arts didn't go entirely out of style. Some people still practice them. But they're not as popular as other sports."

"But you said our great...great-grandson has a fighting spirit," Chichi said. "Is he a martial artist?"

Gohan hesitated. "Not exactly... He does like to battle, he's got a certain gift for it, but they've got a new way of fighting now--it's related to what I was telling you, Bulma-san, about Capsule Corp's invention. It's competitive battling, but people don't--"

"I don't believe any of it," Vegeta growled. "They're still Earthlings. They'll start fighting and doing evil again. It's their nature as much as it is ours."

"Well..." Gohan glanced idly at the sky. "Your great-grandson believes that, I suppose..."

"Great-grandson? Ours?" Bulma pounced on that, and even Vegeta raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Trunks has been having quite a time reigning him in--I'm afraid that son of his barely tries at all. A bit flighty, he and his wife--too much upperclass inbreeding in her case, I suspect. Your other grandchildren all turned out much better. Anyway, your great-grandson had trouble in school, joined a gang for a time, and finally ended up working for, erm..." He coughed. "The closest thing we have to bad guys now, I suppose you could say."

Bulma's eyes narrowed at the thought of any of her descendants acting so ignobly. Vegeta was suspicious on a different account. "Whatever purpose he puts them to, how are his fighting skills? Surely more than your derivative--he has twice as much Saiyajin blood, after all, and it's royal, at that."

"Well, he practices the same, er, fighting style as my great-grandson. I haven't seen him in action much, but he seems to be enjoying himself for the most part, and Trunks tells me he's found a nice girl, a coworker--he's a handsome boy, looks a bit like Trunks did at that age, actually, the same hair--"

"Can he go Super Saiyajin?" Vegeta rumbled, hitting dangerously low pitches.

"Ummm..." Gohan coughed again. "He's keeping up the family tradition, he and my great grandson are somewhat competitive--"

"Somewhat?"

"Aa, Vegeta, I bet they fight all the time, Gohan's just being polite," Goku tried to reassure his prince.

"They do clash a lot," Gohan said slowly. "And he does put a great deal of effort into it..."

He was pleased, not to mention relieved, to hear people entering the glade. A cheerful boy's shout rang out, "Hey, Professor!"

"That's my great-grandson now, with his friends. Over here!" Gohan called back.

The four recently returned to Earth looked expectantly down the path. But the first thing to appear was not the child they expected. Small, red-cheeked, scampering on stubby legs with its tail zigzagging behind, it was like no animal they had ever seen before. It was too cute to possibly be alive, for one thing.

"What the hell is **_that_**?" Vegeta demanded in a kawaii-induced panic, his hands going up, palm-outwards, preparing to Final Flash the little yellow demon out of existence.

Gohan stopped him with a ki-enhanced hand on his shoulder. "No, don't," he said. "It's my great-grandson's." He raised his voice. "Come here and say hello, Pikachu!"

end 

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**Graphic evidence supporting this hypothesis can be found here: http://www.crosswinds.net/~xmagicalx/misc/dbz_pokepix.html **


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